There are too many stories about dad that I could tell, but the above picture is dad loving life. Mum and Dad had come to visit me in Sydney when I was posted out there. They came before the Olympics in 2000 and we did the Blue Mountains (for the wine, but we did do some hiking) and this was taken on a yacht we hired in the WhitSunday Islands. We managed to get a trip on a Sea-plane up to the Great Barrier Reef (I doubt the pilot knew who he was sat next to, but dad was watching everything, oh so quietly).

Dad dragged me up mountains (which I do to my kids today), had me running around a yacht in a force 7 gale when he was doing his RYA skipper training (when everyone in the family was throwing up over the back of yacht), taught me to drive in a Volvo estate…honestly it wasn’t a good experience, buzzed me in his plane when doing my Duke of Edinburgh expeditions (in both Wales and the Lake District, didn’t seem to matter) and was the worst nurse when he came to look after me in New York after knee surgery (I got steak every night, as it seemed to be the only thing he could cook, plus you could have red wine with it, so that was fine with him).

He lived life to the full and never stopped. I will miss the weather forecasts I regularly got. I loved looking a maps with him. I loved him having total faith that I could do anything I put my mind to, to stop whinging and get on with it. Most of all to live, love and enjoy life. He most certainly did.